Sweetgrass Lawn Care LLC review: Dishonest, deceitful lawn care company in Summerville, SC 1

I need to warn the Craigslist community of a deceitful and dishonest lawn care company that I had hired to handle my lawn maintenance. They used to go by the name "Sweetgrass Lawn Care" and recently changed their name to "Southern Soil Lawn Care." At first it seemed as though they were doing a good job, but I had to call them several times when the lawn got too long and they hadn't mowed yet as well as when there were significant weeds growing in my mulch beds. Per my contract with them, they were to come out 24 times a year (which would equate to roughly every ten days, since they did not mow during the three winter months), pull weeds from the mulch beds, re-mulch when necessary, pressure wash when necessary, fertilize and weed n' feed when necessary, as well as "any other necessary lawn/exterior maintenance that our property should require."

After signing the contract, everything usually needed maintenance every two weeks, but as the rainy season moved in and the grass grew faster, it really needed maintaining every ten days. When I asked them to come more often (every ten days per the contract), they stated that what the contract "meant" to say was twice a month, not 24 times per year.

Everything would be okay, but I had to call at least four or five times because they had missed/forgotten something significant, such as allowing weeds to grow UP TO TWO FEET TALL sometimes on the side of my house and in the mulched areas. Their communication became practically non-existent, until I called the owner and left an upset voicemail. A few days later, their "field superintendent, " Alan, called to apologize and rectify the situation. I felt better, and informed him that I REALLY needed them to be extra cautious to maintain our property as we were moving to another state and wanted to make sure everything was always in pristine condition while our property manager was showing the house to potential tenants.

I have now been gone for ten months, and I have gotten calls TWICE from my neighbor/friend informing me that my lawn "looks REALLY bad" and that her husband has been over a handful of times with weed killer APPLYING IT HIMSELF! I obviously called and talked to Alan each time my neighbor informed me, but couldn't really do anything (such as hire a more REPUTABLE lawn service) as I was 9 hours away.

The final straw happened just this weekend when I returned to the property to find the ENTIRE lawn COVERED in clovers and little yellow weeds that I've never seen before. The mulch beds had clovers, grass, and several tall weeds all over them. There was even a few weeds that were TWO FEET TALL growing against the back of the house! On top of ALL THIS, I had planted a BABY magnolia tree (that my mother had given to me four years ago when I moved into the house) in the front yard (it was only about a foot and a half tall when I moved out of state) that had A LOT of meaning to me, and I SPECIFICALLY requested that they take special care of it for me...I was DEVASTATED when I pulled up to my house this past Friday to find that the magnolia tree was DEAD :( Bot only was it dead, but they LEFT the DEAD TREE PLANTED IN MY FRONT YARD, brown leaves and everything!

I immediately took pictures and sent them to Alan an requested that they come out IMMEDIATELY to fix EVERYTHING and that I would not be paying them for this final service; it was my opportunity to allow them to save face, like a GOOD business would do as an apology to a very dissatisfied customer.

I don't even want to get into it on here, but you WOULDN'T BELIEVE the text message responses Alan sent me. I WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO EMAIL PICTURES OF THE DAMAGE AS WELL AS THE TEXT MESSAGE CONVERSATION SHOULD ANYONE BE INTERESTED!

These people have CONVINCED themselves that they gave done NOTHING wrong, when they were CLEARLY taking advantage of the fact that they knew I wasn't living on the property.

BE WARNED!